


an iliad: in parts

by briarsrowan



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Achilles - Freeform, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Cheating, Confessions, F/M, Gay, LGBTQ, M/M, PTSD, Patroclus - Freeform, Period Typical Homophobia, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Sort Of, The Iliad, Tragic Romance, Trauma, not really but you know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27275149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briarsrowan/pseuds/briarsrowan
Summary: the moments before achilles kills hector.--They are no longer boys and youth, whatever scraps of it are left after Ishval, is starting to melt away like honey off warm toast......They are standing awkwardly, too close and too far apart and this, this is wrong. Things between the two of them, no matter how hard they have been, are never awkward.
Relationships: Gracia Hughes/Maes Hughes, Maes Hughes/Roy Mustang
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	an iliad: in parts

**Author's Note:**

> this is kind of sad idk. it's also sweet? i don't know i've been writing fanfic again for like a second and only seem to be able to write kind of sad and doomed things (definitely no reason for that lmao)

The most true and most unavoidable thing about Roy Mustang is that he is in love with Maes Hughes. He learns this daily, over and over. He learns it slowly, in their youth, and continues to learn it day in and day out. Sometimes Roy is able to trick himself. For a moment, he can push it away, convince himself that this time, he has moved on from him. 

  
He never has. Every time, year after year he finds himself again falling in love with Maes Hughes. It comes to him like breathing; he has never had to think about it and no matter how hard he tries, he cannot will himself to stop. Every day, Roy is confronted with the fact that he loves his best friend. This should be beautiful, maybe, he thinks. An epic love story. In some ways it is.

  
Roy and Maes dance around each other with a practiced elegance and tack. They mask tension with banter and laughter, snuff out rumors with girlfriends and whispers and trips to bars. Roy feels as though he is close to snapping, pulled to tight, it is a painful game that they play.

  
The two of them had kissed before, once in the academy and once during the war. They have never spoken about it and Roy has always been able to rationalize it out of existence. They were drunk, or desperate and lonely and scared. For every moment he has that convinces his brain that just maybe Maes loves him too there are ten well analyzed rebuttals at the ready. Roy pushes this all away. 

  
It is after the war and any scraps of boyhood from before Ishval are long gone. Youth has begun to melt from them like honey from warm toast. Roy has transferred to Central; his dreams are coming true, slowly, but surely, he is rising through the ranks. For all that he is living out his dreams, Roy still feels like he’s losing, like he’s lost something.

  
These are dangerous thoughts for a man who wants to be the Fuhrer. They are worse still to have towards a married man. Still, Roy cannot seem to shake them.

  
The night that Roy breaks; it is raining. He is getting home late (and home perhaps, is a strong word for the apartment that he sleeps in barely 3 nights a week and paid to have furnished for him, lately he has preferred the office couch and sleepless nights to the still near barren apartment). He climbs the stairs to his walk-up steadily, each step measured and precise. His pace is brisk, but not hurried and his breath even. His hair is wet, but he is feeling almost careless and numb and cannot bring himself to care much about the fact that he is essentially defenseless. 

  
Tonight marks the first night in two weeks that he is still sober by eleven and it is the first in four that he has bothered to return to the apartment (he had been driven home, late, by Hawkeye, who had insisted that he was in need of a shower and sleep. It had been the shower comment that had motivated him, but she had also asked, rather plainly, that he lay off the alcohol). 

  
Somehow Hughes is waiting for him, like he knew he would be here tonight. Maes is not wearing a coat; he’s not wearing any layers at all and is soaked through for his lack of effort. He’s in his civilian clothes, a rarity these days, which are just a plaid button up and jeans. They make him look like an average father, the soldier melts right off him. Roy thinks, almost bitterly, that he does not have that in him. Roy takes him in, the lines of his face are pulled taught and his shoulders slump and drop in with unseen weight. His eyes reveal a churning distress and Roy looks away. 

  
They say nothing as Roy digs for his keys and walks past Maes, who is still watching him, and unlocks the apartment door. It occurs to Roy that he’s never told Maes where he lives. He leaves this thought at the threshold, entering the apartment soaking boots still on. He does not take them off as he walks straight the the bar.

  
“Drink?” He asks Maes when they’re both inside, door shut behind them. They are standing awkwardly, too close and too far apart and this, this is wrong. Things between the two of them, no matter how hard they have been, are never awkward. They flow naturally; they fit together. Tonight something is wrong and Roy doesn’t know if he can take it. 

  
“No thank you,” Maes says and then, when Roy goes to pour himself a drink anyway, he says, “maybe you should hold off too.”

  
It is completely unlike him and as small as this is, it shakes Roy. He must have been talking to Hawkeye, Roy thinks bitterly. The two of them, they drink together. They laugh and tease and lately, Maes shows him pictures, of his daughter, of his wife. God, his wife. Maes is married. Guilt consumes Roy. 

  
Maes is watching him, all intensity and turning gears. It is a look that Roy has never had turned on him. Maes is watching him like a puzzle he has yet to figure out, which is all wrong when Maes has always been the one who understood him. Maes is looking at him the way that he looks at his particularly difficult cases and it unsettles Roy, makes him squirm. He swallows, breathes, and does his best to remain stoic through this new and unfamiliar part of their little dance.

  
Instead of getting a drink, Roy indulges Maes. He instead goes to hang up his soaked rain coat and walks around the couch, pointedly not looking at him. Maes does not stop watching him through this, but he does take a seat on one of the generic armchairs Roy had paid to have his apartment furnished with.

  
Maes’s eyes do not leave him once, but he does take a seat in one of the generic arm chairs that litter Roy’s apartment all bland and tasteless and nothing. Roy sits. He looks at Maes and sighs, “Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

  
And Maes, unprompted, voice rough and breaking, says, “I love you.”  
  



End file.
